Eye Tracking Technology Poised To Be Next Trend To Immerse Gamers Addicting Game News
A Queen’s University study confirms that video-gamers feel more immersed and
have more fun in virtual environments when they play with commercial eye
tracking technology.
These “new controls” replace the mouse click as a means to allow players to
interact more naturally with their digital environments.
"Eye tracking technology allows us to build interfaces that respond to users'
intentions rather than just their actions. This makes computers feel more
natural than ever before," says the study’s co-author David Smith a PhD
candidate with Queen’s School of Computing.
First developed in the late 1960s the technology, already used by people with
limited mobility, pilots, and market researchers, is increasingly attracting the
interest of video-game companies.
This study, also authored by the School of Computing’s Associate Professor
Nicholas Graham, showed that players enjoyed the way eye tracking enhanced their
involvement in the role-playing game Neverwinter Nights. However, players still
preferred to use the mouse to control games like Quake 2, a first-person shooter
game, and Lunar Command, an action/arcade game.
Players overwhelmingly indicated an increased feeling of immersion in the
gaming world when they played with the eye tracker – 83 percent of those playing
Quake 2, 83 percent playing Neverwinter Nights, and 92 percent playing Lunar
Command. Smith and Graham suggest this is due to an increased level of feedback,
which is given even when the user makes subconscious eye movements.
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